7 Industry Leaders Share Their Go-to Productivity Hacks

We all get 24 hours in a day, but for some of us, the demands on our time are greater. Meet CEOs! So how do they get so much done in so little time? Clearly, they have a strategy that works. We ask 7 industry leaders their secret ingredient to productivity!

1.    Start Your Day by Addressing Critical Emails

Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Neuralink, has a few tricks up his sleeve through which he manages to juggle all those projects on a daily basis. He starts his day at 7 a.m, and spends the first half hour addressing “critical emails.” Elon works by filtering out emails that aren’t critical, to be dealt with later, and instead tries to get the important stuff out of the way first. This half hour sets his tone for the rest of the day and enables him to draft a road map to set his priorities for the day.

2.    Plan A Meeting-free Day Each Week

Meeting fatigue is real, which is why Asana CEO Dustin Moskovitz, has implemented a company-wide “No Meeting Wednesdays” rule in place. Similarly, CEO Aria Healthcare Kate Kinslow has instituted “No Meeting Fridays.” The goal of this rule is to ensure that all employees get one day off each week to focus on more important tasks that are otherwise interrupted by redundant meetings.

Meetings pose distractions in employees’ flow time, which is why Moskovitz wants employees to have one day where they can work wherever they want, without feeling obliged to stay accessible to anyone but themselves. Research says that you can boost productivity by 20 percent by eliminating meetings just for one day.

3.    Focus on Self-care

Jessica Dilullo Herrin, the founder and CEO of Stella and Dot, believes that self-care enables her to be the best version of herself. First things first, she emphasizes the importance of sleep. For this purpose, she uses an app, called “sleep well”, that helps her sleep well through hypnosis, and encourages her to meditate before going to bed.

4.    Make Notes

Lists may not cut the bill when we talk about efficiency and productivity, but Richard Branson carries a notebook wherever he goes. He sets quite a score by making lists and is known to prefer handwritten notes to digital ones. He can transform anything from long-term project goals to day-to-day tasks into to-do lists that he can check one by one. This makes sure that everything stays organized and no good ideas can slip through the cracks. If you are a digital-savvy person, you may be tempted to turn to voice notes or your phone, but there’s something so magical about that tactile act of writing, especially crossing things off, which will eventually help you retain things better.

5.    Send Fewer Emails

LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner only believes in sending, and in turn receiving, emails only when absolutely necessary. He realized how much lighter his inbox got just after two colleagues left the organization. In addition to their emails, a lot of inbox activity was being generated from his responses to their emails, the replies of others in the thread, his responses to their replies and so on. Thereafter, he decided to keep a far more navigable inbox!

6.    Incorporate Naps into Your Day

StockX CEO Josh Luber isn’t someone to berate his employees for catching a snooze at work, since he himself sleeps on the job to rejuvenate from time to time. He is of the opinion that incorporating naps into your day helps you maintain productivity throughout the day. Since he is on the road 70% to 80% of his time across varying time zones, he tries to squeeze in short naps once or twice the day to refuel. It helps his recharge for the rest of the day.

7.    Learn to Say No

The CEO of Basecamp, Jason Fried, is of the opinion that a “yes man” can find it hard to be productive or even get things done at all. This is why, he is very selective about what he does. He says that nothing matches the power of a simple “no” when we talk about productivity. Having fewer things to do is how he gets things done and propagates the same to his employees. He says that one should not be too generous with their two most precious resources; time and attention.